London planning: agglomeration, density, housing, rent (and Brexit)

Warning Many of the images in this talk are copyright of other people. Please respect this by using this for study/research purposes only, not for any commercial use. In case of doubt, contact m.edwards@ucl.ac.uk Later: I only got to about #36. There is more. And links/ readings in the last slide.

Introduction to London, Bartlett 2018 London planning: agglomeration, density, housing, rent (and Brexit) Michael Edwards m.edwards@ucl.ac.uk Bartlett School, UCL http://justspace.org.uk http://michaeledwards.org.uk @michaellondonsf

Scope Explaining the Brexit vote very little Vulture capital seeking chaos to exploit Some mainstream capital ending protection of labour & environment Failure of left to offer a challenge to neo-liberal hegemony Scapegoating foreigners An un-planned coalition; not simple What is Brexit doing to London so far? What are the prospects for London if Brexit happens? Theoretical approaches London analysis Just Space & challenges Graphic: @BillyBragg

Brexit effects so far Serious reinforcement of xenophobia, legitimation of racism, divisions within classes Labour shortages as deportations, the threat of deportations and generalised fear / feeling unwelcome, begin to bite. High level and low level skills all affected. Au pairs down 35%. Desperation among sections of capital: manufacturing (esp aerospace, vehicles, pharma), agriculture and food; logistics; construction Freeze of investment in these branches, except in training Alternative plans being made Downturn in prices of London housing, led by the luxury end of market;? crash on the way. But falling value of works the other way.

Brexit prospects Shift/share types of analysis predicting worst effects of actual brexit will be in manufacturing sectors and thus regions, with London less affected. Existing huge disparities would grow worse. Financial and related sectors: clear signs of financial market firms moving staff and trading activity: Paris, Lux, FF, Dublin but also NY, Singapore, HK. Final extent of all this not clear. Financial sector and London business optimists confident that the unique features of London s agglomeration will survive, including its legal, accountancy and consultant roles. Insurance expected to be less affected than investment banking, forex and so on. Pessimism in the architecture/planning/engineering export sector.

Prospects for other European regions Note the diffused effects of brexit in depressing growth across Germany & rest of Europe, especially Ireland And the continuing crisis of the Eurozone

UK in context: the only EU nation state where GDP has grown while wages declined

Falling wage share of GDP via Christian Zeller (The non-wage part is profit+rent, but they are impossible to separate in stats)

Falling wage share of GDP via Christian Zeller

#BrexitGeographies Slightly misleading because the richest UK region (Inner London West) is under-bounded. But broad picture accurate enough.

Rent theory: two schools of thought Mainstream: rent and land value issues are seen in simple versions as supply/ demand balance problems: if rent/prices are too high we must simply build more. In more sophisticated versions, rents & land values are modelled as the outcomes of multi-factor attributes of properties interacting with preferences: location and accessibility, property size, proximity to good schools, environment and so on. State mainly enters as a constraint on demand being met, managing externalities. Marxist: rent is based in the social relations of ownership of land and the relative power of owners and users (both businesses and households). Distinct forms of rent can (re-)distribute surplus value between landlords and capitalists and among different classes of capitalists. Rent can also, crucially, play a role in the class struggles between labour and capital via the cost and security of housing. State constituting & enforcing markets, structuring power relations, unblocking contradictions, doing infrastructure, bearing risks.

Marxian Rent theory and the current crisis in London This talk treats London s recent experience as a case study. A case of what? Of a city whose social relations are being damaged by rent and by agglomeration. My main activities involve me in speaking to citizens meetings, to policy people and to students new to the field and my habit is to keep theory in the background. In this talk, however, I am trying to place the theoretical apparatus more explicitly and visibly at the front. The 2 key areas of theory are rent, as construed by Marx and Harvey, and agglomeration as a very central imperative in mainstream urban thought and policy. Both connect with the underlying issues of value. The narrative follows the recent history of London s housing and land markets, the erosion of non-market housing and common space, the various roles of the state and the antagonistic class relations being played out in this process.

housing has become less affordable Ratio of mean house price to estimated median earnings in London Sources: New Earnings Survey (NES) prior to 1997 and ASHE workplace-based earnings from 1997 to 2014. ONS simple average house prices, 1969-2014.

Mean house price Change 2007 pre-crash - 2013 Sources: England and Wales: DCLG Live Table 581; Scotland: Registers of Scotland statistical releases. Map by Tristan Carlyon

before

after

Size of financial sectors

UK tangible assets Value of UK tangible assets: ONS UK Tangible Assets: market value

Value of UK UK tangible assets: ONS UK Tangible Assets: market value

Wider and deeper commodification of urban space direct privatisation social housing PFI health, schools, prisons Utilities: water, telecom, care homes, fire engines property market mediates access to schools green environments air quality etc how does reproduction work in such a place? sucking in from abroad long-haul commuting Overcrowding, homelessness subsidies to rents BUT these subsidies being cut > London is dramatically segregating What role is the crisis playing? further entrenching rent as a claim on surplus lowering real wages See Lapavitsas and Louis Moreno in bibliography

Current London policy imperatives The London Plan is built on the absolute imperative of adding 65,000 dwellings per year (25,000 now) This is the logic to drive the Plan Redevelopment of social housing estates Displacing tenants Rebuilding shopping centres for dense housing Displacing enterprises, jobs, services Displacing MORE work-space enterprises, jobs and services Taking common space for private housing use

Narrative: growth reinforced by policy x

Agglomeration Mainstream concept Larger concentrations of people and business in cities generate economies (cost reductions) for enterprises Via proximity to similar firms (gossip, larger labour pools, specialisation) Via proximity to complementary firms (better supply chains) Support for better infrastructure (airports, universities) But Diseconomies flowing from Congestion and pollution Increased travel times/costs Rents, displacement, insecurity Critiques not well-developed; Incidence is ignored: who gains, who loses? Optimum can be imagined but no mechanism to achieve it. [Fragments in geography of uneven development, European Spatial Development Perspective ESDP, gender studies, equalities ]

Green belt and conservation areas

Commuting area

with London specialising in financial and business services London s broad sectors: Index of Specialisation and share of London s output Source: GLA Economics based on data from the ONS Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) and ONS Regional Gross Value Added (GVA) series

Rent does much more than simply reflect accessibility to the centre Land captures: differences in schools air quality landscape local services; any local monopoly; extra density

Today: phenomena Symptoms of a severe crisis for low- and middle-income workers Homelessness growing Overcrowding growing Space standards low (m 2 ) Low output of housing compared with need Rising prices, even now with credit less easy Huge growth of private renting: insecure and un-regulated Diverts investment from productive uses Extinguishes much of the existing economy Feeds inequality by enriching owners at expense of non-owners State spending on infrastructure very costly & centralising State spending on housing benefits very costly (even after cuts)

Some priority people MUST be given temporary housing by law. Often it is now outside their home borough (yellow)

Property relations in the UK - interpretation weakened manufacture cheapening of imports lowers reproduction costs (China etc) geographical concentration of asset values, growth in SE supply of space limited by private ownership and planning taxation favours owners (REITS, tax breaks for landlords, owneroccupiers) rent controls & security, removed in private rent housing long history of leases favourable to landlords Financialisation wider and deeper (PFI, utilities, privatisation generally) widening inequality (both cause and effect) inter-generation transfers gender inequalities inter-class transfers Inter-region divergence breakdown of pension system so people buy more property easy credit (pre-crash) for owner-occupation housing For investors in rental housing for commercial property It is a class struggle, but not a simple one because of the fragmentation of working class by housing tenure forms

More density: always good? 1999 report Towards an Urban Renaissance task force led by Richard Rogers Trying to get middle class back in to cities Trying to protect green land outside cities Trying to support public transport Main proposal: dense, mixed-use urban areas BUT In London Middle class never abandoned the city (not Detroit or Manchester) Added density in areas already dense overloads services, green space Encourages land price rises; density is a tremendous generator of rent Is applied mainly in working-class areas, not expensive areas

Back to rent theory Landownership v productive capital Growing direct tensions (space, rent, retail collapse) Indirect tensions via worker housing Capital/land v workers Pressure on real disposable incomes from housing rent & purchase costs Expulsion of workers to periphery and beyond Losses of services, spaces, communitity, industry Contradictions for the state Paying welfare benefits to reduce risk for landlords Heavy infrastructure costs of supporting agglomeration

Crossrail 1, opens 2018

Crossrail2 starts?2020 Expected to cost 30 bn & increase values of existing homes by 60 bn

Re-structuring class occupations 2001-11 (Hudson) Red: occupations moving up Blue: occupations moving down

http://www.dannydorling.org/?p=6523

Elephant and Castle: the Heygate Estate - an extreme case of state-sponsored gentrification

Heygate estate (1970± (above)) now demoilshed And being replaced by Lend Lease corporation (left). http://elephantamenity.wordpress.com/ 1100 social housing units replaced with 2300 of which 71 socially-rented

UCL planned new campus beside Olympic Park

Greenwich peninsula proposals

Vauxhall actual photo, with more under construction

Regeneration targets poorest

Agglomeration as the key to growth? Positive benefits Enjoyed mostly by employers, property owners Negative effects Suffered mainly by citizens Costly for the state to mitigate Is there a mechanism to produce equilibrium? NO State expenditure on infrastructure feeds property value growth, harvested by land and property owners including established owner-occupiers For example: London s next radial railway scheme, Crossrail 2, is estimated to cost 30billion and to increase the value of the affected housing stock by 60bn.

Project by Rebecca Ross, Central St Martins

Activity of Just Space London Plan Borough Plans Major projects/development Corp s Neighbourhood Planning Conferences + work groups Publications & Protocol for work with universities Strong links with UCL and other universities

What it is not A party A campaign An NGO or ThinkTank Technical aid for communities What it is A network of organisations/campaigns/groups Mutual support Minimum constitution Tries to work by consensus Multi-scale

No alternative Image from London for All, Just Space, 2015 Just Space as an example capable of disputing There is no alternative - How the alliance came together; who it speaks for and how; its approach to achieving change - Reflection on successes/ challenges

Issues: Feasible to link green, red, localist, ethnic etc fragments? Peter Marcuse s alliance of the deprived and the disappointed? Prospects for success in changing the plan? Mixed. But worth fighting? Challenge to the discourse Open up procedures, demanding resources Building a more sophisticated community Very good for university to take part for education of students; AND changing research agendas Jessica Ferm, Sarah Bell [UCL Engineering Exchange], Myfanwy Taylor Calls for longitudinal studies of (e.g.) regeneration, Image: Sheila local Smith econ on devel t day 1 of the Eurostar service

: 'In 1941 Lord Reith, who then was Minister..., asked the London County Council to prepare a plan and to work it out without paying overmuch respect to existing town planning law and all the other laws affecting building and industry but with a reasonable belief that if a good scheme was put forward it would provide reasons indeed more than "reasons" the impulse and determination to bring about whatever changes in law are needed to carry the plan into effect. The County of London Plan explained (1945) JustSpace.org.u Are we doing enough? No Gypsies & travelers making representations at EiP 2010; image LGTU

Process many conferences, workshops Working groups in parallel Some student and university inputs throughout Getting agreements on hard issues: Private renting: how radical to be Green belt diversity versus class

Alternatively Salaries, tax and re-valuing work De-growth, post-growth, growth of what? Land reform Including wealth and property taxes Collective services and commons Including re-creating non-commodity housing Making better use of existing housing stock; protecting & growing non-profit sector Stabilising house prices: ladder flat on ground Restoring tenant rights, right to stay put Geographical divergence in UK and within London Reduce the need to travel

Discussion on financialisation, London, rent. Costas Lapavitsas, Louis Moreno, Joe Penny and me. BLOG http://www.city-analysis.net/2018/08/04/financialisation-and-the-london-question David Harvey The Urbanization of Capital and The Limits to Capital; Manuel B. Aalbers & Brett Christophers (2014) Centring Housing in Political Economy, Housing, Theory and Society, 31:4, 373-394, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2014.947082 Ball, M., V. Bentivegna, M. Edwards and M. Folin, Eds. (2018 June) Land Rent, Housing and Urban Planning: a European perspective London, Routledge Revivals (reprint of 1985 original) My approach to UK land, rent, housing is written up in Edwards, Michael (2015) Prospects for land, rent and housing in UK cities, Working Paper 18, Foresight Future of Cities Project, Government Office for Science, free download from https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/future-of-cities#working-papers and http://societycould.wordpress.com Edwards, M (2010) King s Cross: renaissance for whom?, in (ed John Punter) Urban Design, Urban Renaissance and British Cities, London: Routledge, 189-205. Eprint free at http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/14020 Urban Pamphleteer #2, UCL Urban Lab on Regeneration 2014 http://www.ucl.ac.uk/urbanlab/news/urbanpamphleteer2regenerationrealities Ben Campkin (2013) Remaking London: Decline and Regeneration in Urban Culture, London London Tenants Federation and Just Space: Conference of resisting gentrifcation http://www.londontenants.org/publications/reports/conference%20jan%202013.pdf Rob Imrie & Loretta Lees, Sustainable London? Policy Press 2014 Edwards, Michael (2016 April) The Housing Crisis and London, in Special Feature on London edited by Anna Minton and Paul Watt, City 20(2) Open Access http://bit.ly/1qk8ri2 London opposition material: JustSpace.org.uk Sandra Annunziata e Clara Rivas (2018) Resisting Gentrification in Handbook of Gentrification Studies, Ed Loretta Lees e Martin Phillips, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, ISBN: 978 1 78536 173 9 Download free https://www.academia.edu/ 36548493/Resisting_gentrification?auto=download Jamie Gough, Brexit, Xenophobia and left strategy now https://michaeledwards.org.uk/2017/04/05/brexit-xenophobia-and-left-strategy-now/